April 6, 2009

I couldn't avoid my date with the 1040 any longer and succumbed to it's over powering call on Saturday. By late Sunday, my husband and I finished our review then shared a gut squeezing hug for the blessed wonder of e-file. Since I have finally emerged from the brain freeze induced by finishing our 1040 and assorted state taxes. All I can say is, "Thank the Lord for Turbotax!"

In order to make a high protein flour mix for the Lean White Bread and the Bagels (recipe 1 & 2 of the Baking & Pastry Project), I need to experiment with using bean flour. Some bean flours offer a higher protein content than quinoa (16 g protein for 100 g flour). For example, white bean flour has around 21 g protein for 100 g of flour.

My flour order finally arrived and contained white and black bean flour, plus a bag of mung beans that I want to turn into flour. Using my handy dandy Braun coffee grinder, the one devoted to grinding seeds, nuts and spices, I started making a racket. Grinding beans isn't a quiet process and some place there is probably a warning about the need to wear hearing protection.

Then our Sheltie thought I was trying to tear down the house and decided it was time to tell the coffee grinder to stop as loud and as often as she could. This was no "Timmy's in the well!" type of commotion. It was a no holds barred cease and desist order for the bean grinding to stop.

By the time I finished, I had these lovely piles of colorful flours.

The mildest tasting flour is the white bean and the strongest was Jacob's Cattle bean. Starting from left to right the bean flours are lined up based upon strength of flavor.

This is picture two where the Colorado River bean flour follows the mung bean flour in flavor strength. In the top picture, the green beans are mung, the large red speckled bean are Jacob's Cattle bean and the smaller rosey speckled beans are Colorado River beans.

10 comments:

I've actually stopped using bean flours in my GF flour mixes because the flavors were too strong. I couldn't get over my scones smelling like salty beans! I think the only bean flour I tried was garbanzo. How much milder is the white bean flour, and what type of recipe do you use it in?

Thanks! I'll have to try the white bean flour. I don't use soy in any of my mixes because one of my good friends is GF and allergic to soy. White bean sounds like the way to go! How does it do for texture?

Hi BC - I would guess if you ground beans a lot it would eventually dull your blades. If you have a really nice blender you might want to consider doing this with a less expensive coffee grinder. Maybe you could find one at a local thrift shop.